Back in February, while I will still hard at work on Art Ross: The Hockey Legend Who Built the Bruins, Art Ross III (who, along with his wife and his sisters, have all been great supporters – and great helps – on the project) sent me a few clippings from Boston Bruins programs he found in a family scrapbook. This story below appeared almost 44 years ago, on November 19, 1961, just over seven years after Art Ross had retired from the Bruins. Several bits and pieces from this article made their way into my biography … but I particularly liked where Henry McKenna noted: “So you can see that trying to write about Art Ross in a single chapter is virtually impossible. A book perhaps, but hardly a single article.”

So, why has it taken so long for somebody to write this book? I offer a few thoughts on that, as well as why I wanted to be the one to write it, on the web site of my publisher, Dundurn. Rather than write it all again, you can have a look here if you’re interested.

As many of you know, I’ve been out and about lately promoting the book. We had a launch in Toronto last month, and another a few days ago in Owen Sound (where the local Sun Times was the first to review the book). Barbara and I were also in Maine a couple of weeks ago for a wonderful Ross family long weekend, and then we visited Boston, where I appeared on the pregame show of a Bruins broadcast, caught up with some of the Bruins staff who had helped me along the way, and chatted with a couple of Bruins reporters.

On the air with NESN’s Dale Arnold

If you’d like to see the interview I did, you have to be on Facebook, but this link should take you there. (The part with me starts 20 seconds in.) Otherwise, you can listen to the radio interview I did here in Owen Sound. In addition, there has been some great coverage from prolific American hockey writer and broadcaster Stan Fischler, and, most recently, this review from the Winnipeg Free Press. Upcoming is a radio interview with Dave Fisher on CJAD in Montreal. (Montreal friends, I’ll try to keep you posted on that one.)

At Ben McNally Books in Toronto, wearing a Montreal Wanderers sweater loaned to me by
Society for International Hockey Research president Jean-Patrice Martel. Art Ross spent most of his playing career with the Wanderers.

Let’s just say the Barnes and Noble at the Prudential Center in Boston
has a lot of signed copies to sell

Signing for fellow SIHR member Lorne Bell at the Owen Sound launch at The Ginger Press

Oh, and by the way, if you’ve already read the book and if you liked it, feel free to offer comments and reviews on web sites such as Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, Goodreads, or Barnes and Noble. I don’t honestly know if it makes much difference, but it couldn’t hurt!

Perhaps it’ll all work out for the best. Perhaps the money saved by trading Adam Lind, the player with the highest batting average in the Majors against righthanded pitching, for Marco Estrada, the pitcher who gave up the most home runs in the National League, makes sense. Perhaps the .202-hitting Justin Smoak is ready to bust out. Or, maybe, these are just the earliest moves in an offseason (hopefully!) filled with better ones to come. Still, the Lind trade put me immediately in mind of one of the greatest headlines in Blue Jays history:

This story appeared in the Toronto Star on Sunday, December 13, 1980, the day after the Blue Jays sent Bob Bailor to the Mets for Roy Lee Jackson. Bailor put up some decent numbers with the Mets and Dodgers after leaving Toronto, but the Jays didn’t really miss him. As for, Roy Lee Jackson, he’s probably best remembered as a pretty fine National Anthem singer, but he did have better stats than people might recall.

Still, an awful lot of Jackson’s wins came from Jays rallies after he’d blown leads … so much so that where other people might refer to those types of pitchers as “vultures” in my family, we referred to those types of situations as “Roy Lee wins.”

Here’s hoping the donation of Lind works out better!

Anyone who grew up a sports fan in Toronto remembers Ralph. I honestly can’t recall anymore if I first came across him at Maple Leaf Gardens for Leafs or Marlies games (like Pops … remember him?) or at Exhibition Stadium for the Blue Jays. My most vivid memories of Ralph are certainly from baseball games, with him hustling up and down the stairs, quietly hollering (if that’s possible) “Programs. Yearbooks.” Did he also sell hot dogs at Exhibition Stadium? I think he might have.

I don’t remember how I first learned his name was Ralph, but I’d say, “hi Ralph” when I saw him, and he’d always say, “Where do I know you from?” I thought that was odd. He didn’t really “know” me at all, and I figured, how could he possibly even think he could keep track of me when he must have come across so many people that knew his name? Clearly there were those who knew him better than me, knew his quirks, and his odd habit of crashing Bar Mitzahs.

My father always used to say, “Ralph must be the hardest-working kid in the city.” He was shocked to learn that Ralph was much closer to HIS age than to my brothers and mine! My brother, Jonathan, knew him a little bit away from the ballpark, and it was through him that I learned of Ralph’s “Rainman-esque” feat of being able to provide the day of the week for any birth date. My brother, David, had a friend that was in charge of the program vendors at Exhibition Stadium for a while. I remember, after the Royals eliminated the Blue Jays in the 1985 American League Championship Series, Ralph saying something like, “Oh, well. The Dodgers [who’d been eliminated in the NL by the Cardinals] are stuck with a lot of merchandise too.” That did NOT make me feel any better!

Rest in Peace Ralph. I’m sure he’d be stunned by the attention and tributes his death has sparked.